On the radar

The pick of the science news

Plants move downhill

Some plants move not uphill but down when temperatures rise, according to a study in California.

Researchers looked at various vascular plants at locations in the State between the 1930s and the 2000s, and found that many species moved to lower altitudes over that period.

“This downhill shift is counter to what would be expected given 20th-century warming,” write the study authors in Science. The researchers at UC Davis reckon it could have to do with wetness, and that increased precipitation may help plants to survive at lower altitudes despite a temperature increase.

Marathon by polar bear

A female adult polar bear in the Beaufort Sea near Alaska swam 687km in the space of nine days and then swam and walked on the sea ice surface an additional 1,800km. That’s the finding of a study that tracked the radio-collared animal between August and October 2008.

The ability to cover such distances may help polar bears cope with reduced sea ice in the Arctic, write the researchers in Polar Biology. But this comes at a cost: "Between captures, this polar bear lost 22 per cent of her body mass and her yearling cub," they note.

First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see  if the phone can control a satellite

Shaun Kenyon from Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, which is working with researchers at the University of Surrey to put a mobile phone into orbit around the Earth. [BBC]